Eyes of the Nightmare
by XxDragonFuryxX
Summary: Short Story.  Living through an apocalypse is hard for anyone. Live through this apocalypse through the eyes of a 12 year old and journey with her to search for the rest of mankind.


Hello =] This is my first story that I published on ^_^ This story is actually a short story I had to write for my English class, but since I'm not much of a writer I want to do Beta Testing for stories and to do that I need to first publish some of my own stories :/ Anyway I hope you enjoy it and please leave a review if you liked it or if you find a grammar or spelling mistake. I also don't mind flames ;P Criticism helps my work, right? ;D

XxDragonFuryxX  


* * *

Desolation. A state of complete emptiness or destruction. I learned that word at school yesterday (was it really yesterday? It feels like an entire other world from the one I'm experiencing now) and what I'm looking at and feeling matches the definition completely.  
A few days ago I was a living an average life and now here I am. Wandering through a desolate wasteland comprised entirely of death and destruction.  
Giving myself a little slap I continue. I need to focus on getting home. So with a proper goal ahead of me, I break into a run entirely focused on getting home as soon as possible.  
While running, memories start flashing in front of my eyes. I try to close my eyes and block them out, but when I do they just become clearer. So with a sigh I sit down and relive my memories whilst crying for the ones I witnessed dying in those memories.

_'Anna! Pass the barbies!' she shouts. Those simple words a child yells when she wants something. I hear these words almost every time I come over to play with Maya. She's a nice, sunny girl but a bit on the dim side. That's why I play with her. All my life I've been an "exceptional" child. People have been praising me all my life for my academic rewards and "remarkable" genius, that's why when I was 6 my parents took me here to this small town in the middle of the countryside. My parents understand how hard it is for me to be the smart one. They're brilliant scientists who understand how difficult it is to be surrounded by admiring people, but still feel completely alone.  
'Anna! You're not giving them!' Maya shouts again. I realize I've been hesitating for quite some time now, deeply immersed in my own thoughts.  
'Sowwy Maya. Here ya go!' I smile brightly and hand the over glorified bits of plastic to her. I like acting younger than I feel; it makes me feel like I belong in my age group, even if it's just a little bit.  
Than it happens. From the playroom we hear a huge crash and a feminine blood-chilling scream. Running into the kitchen we witness the horror of a demonic looking creature tearing off Maya's fathers head and sucking the bone marrow from his spine. The creature is an 8-foot tall pale green monster with hair covering its entire body. Its eyes are a disgusting milky white colour and its nose is just two slits on its face. Its got a slim body-build with thin arms and legs. There're veins criss-crossing around said body like some intricate disturbing map. Sticking out the end of its arms it there are red and blue strings that seem to be more veins on closer inspection, while looking at these external "veins" I watch as they harden to form sharp blades and rip through the fathers stomach as the demon decides that it wants a slight change in its food. Eyes transfixed on the creature distracted by its meal I nearly miss the fact that Maya and her mother are in the room with me, nearly being I would've missed the fact if they both didn't scream at the same time. Hearing this I felt a wave of panic at what they've done, ripped my eyes from the monstrosity and climbed into the cabinet behind me. Sure enough as I knew it would, the creature also became aware of the two females' presence in the room. From my little place in the cabinet I hear the quickly dying out screams and wet ripping noises. I stay there until I'm sure it's gone, all the while refusing to cry should the creature hear my sobs.  
_  
I stand up, kick a stone, wipe my tears and keep going. It's been a few hours since that happened and I've been trying to get home since. I haven't seen any more of the creatures, but I keep getting the paranoid feeling that they're behind every house, window, rock or tree. Quietly studying their prey until it's the time to pounce.

I finally reach home and run through the door.  
'Mom! Dad! We have to leave we have to go! There are d-' I stop. Looking down at my feet I see a trail of sticky red blood.  
I start to moan; 'No, no, no.'  
I scream; 'MOM! DAD! WHERE ARE YOU?'  
I follow the trail of liquid nightmares as it leads up to the study.  
I'm crying now. 'Mom... Dad... Say something...'  
I see them sitting in their chairs with their backs to me. I also smell blood.  
'Mom…' I slowly turn their chairs. As they turn to face me I gasp, than scream out with my pain and loss. My parents are both dead; stomachs ripped open with their innards spilling out. The look of pain and fear petrified on both their faces are carved into my heart the minute I look at them.  
I turn, sobbing, to run out of the house in case what killed them is still there.  
I'm walking through the streets again, this time with no actual goal. The tears I shed for my parents have long since dried up and so has my mother's blood in my hair, there's no more liquid in my body to cry anymore. I'm so thirsty and so hungry.

It's difficult to walk now. Every footstep my brain tells me to take ends in a half-hearted stumble. But every time I stumble my brain tells me to take another one. I wonder if it'd be easier to just walk into the nearest house and let the demons have me (my hypothesis is that they can't stand the daylight) but I shake the thought from my head before it fully sinks in and continue stumbling forward.  
I'm walking through a deserted street now. I've invented a game that I've been playing for the last few hours. It's called count the seconds you had on this planet before the demons come for you. I admit it's not a very cheerful game to be playing, but for an 8-year old who'd just lost her parents it's an easy one. I kick a stone along the road I've been walking. It hits a rock and flies into the air. I look up and watch the stone. Strange, it has the same colour as the air today. As it falls I turn my head down to look for the stone. Wait. Grey air? I turn my head upwards to look at the air again and there it is! Grey air! Or more accurately, smoke! Smoke means people right? My spirits lift as my body and mind acknowledge the new goal set for me, head to civilization. My feet pick up and for a few moments I forget my body's lack of necessities and head for the most beautiful shade of air I've seen in my life.

A few hours later I stumble into a primitive looking camp, with tents made out of an interesting looking pinkish material. I wonder if it was made out of various leather furniture. The thought makes me laugh, stone aged tents made out of brand new designer leather couches. As I look around I see people walking around a fire, gradually they catch sight of me and start to turn their heads until all are looking at me.  
I try to talk but my throat's dried up from the hours walking in the sun. After a few awkward seconds of coughing and being stared at, I manage to croak out the word I've been looking for.  
"Water". As they hear my request a fat man jabs a woman and orders her to bring me water. The jabbing hand draws my attention to the woman and I notice she too is overweight. In fact the whole tribe is obese! I wonder for a moment how this whole village could be so well fed when there's scarcely any food anywhere, y'know since the demons probably took over the supermarkets and any other town food source, but when the water arrives the thought is banished from my mind. I gulp the water down and as I drink a young girl about my age wanders over to me and caresses the back of my neck. I find this odd, but somehow comforting so I smile at her and she smiles back.

I'm lying in one of the tents. It's night, but I'm not worried. The tribe builds a moat of fire around the camp every night to repel the demons. I stare contently up to the "roof" of my tipi-like tent and look at the material used to build it. It's such an interesting colour, a pinkish that's almost like –. I freeze. The patch of skin I'm looking at is an odd shape, a patch with 5 outstretched strips. I lift a trembling hand and put it over the weird shaped patch. A perfect match. I yank my hand back with horror and scream. My throat goes hoarse when the tribal members get to my tent and I know almost instantly that it was a mistake to scream, just like it was for Maya and her mother. When they see the fear in my eyes they pounce and start tearing into my flesh like wild animals, pushing each other away with shoulders greasy with my blood. Ironically it's only now that I realize how they got so bloated. As I close my eyes in defeat the last thing I see is a dog gnawing away at what was once my leg. Its eyes flashing a shade of red so evil, I think I saw hell. That monstrous colour imprinted into the back of my eyelids as I fade away.

I wake up screaming bloody murder. Wait. Wake up? I slowly turn my head and look around. This is my uncle's farm my parents and I were visiting when I fell asleep on the porch. This revelation clears my fear-clouded brain. I run inside the house and, spotting my parents, cling onto them for dear life whilst sobbing hysterically.  
'Honey? What's wrong?' My mother sounds worried, but I'm just happy to hear her voice.  
'N-N-Nightmare'. I mutter quietly through my tears.  
'Don't worry princess, it's over now'. My father puts his big hand on my head and wipes away my tears with his thumb. 'Shh-'.

I'm waving goodbye to my uncle from the backseat of our car. My uncle waves back with his favorite hunting dog by his side. I'm not sure why but suddenly my eyes are drawn to the dog, I stare at him for a few seconds until the car drives around the bend and the last thing I saw of the dog was it's eyes shining an evil shade of red.  


* * *

Hey, it's me again. Lemme know what you thought of it by reviewing please~


End file.
